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Innocent Mint Plants Become Collateral Damage in the War on Marijuana

May 25, 2010

Corpus Christi, Horsemint, marijuana eradication, police


Every once in a while, there is room for humor at the expense of America’s war on marijuana and this is a story that I couldn’t help but share:

In their unyielding pursuit to rid the world of all of its marijuana plants, police in Corpus Christi, Texas arrived at a city park last week to pull up hundreds of weeds. The only problem with their gardening project is that these weeds were not marijuana at all but a type of wild mint that grows in the area.

Corpus Christi’s KRIS TV news reports that police…

…spent an hour pulling up about 400 plants and filling several garbage bags with the weeds. But, when they got back to the police station and ran some tests it turned out the suspected pot plants were just a fairly common type of weed called 'horse mint.'

This is clearly an embarrassing waste of public safety resources. However, I can’t help but think about how much more useful an activity like clearing weeds out of a park is compared to chasing down adults for growing marijuana plants on their own property.

What do you think?